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Police nail woman believed to be major drug supplier

By Mark Squibb/April 7, 2022

woman believed by police to be a major drug supplier for the Trinity Conception area was arrested at her St. John’s home, Sgt. Kenny Maher of the Harbour Grace RCMP informed members of the Conception Bay North joint council during last week’s meeting.

“In her house we seized meth, which was the same that was seized in our area, cocaine, firearms, another conductive energy weapon, her $45,000 car was seized, and $37,000 in cash was seized,” said Maher. “So, that female was arrested and charged, and there was also a male from the Carbonear area in her house at the time of the warrant and the arrest. He was one of the subjects in the previous warrants, so he was arrested again, charged, and brought to court.”

He said police “worked up the line”, beginning with local sellers to arrest the St. John’s dealer, and said they continue to work closely with RNC in St. John’s and federal drug units to make more arrests, both sellers at a local level and “bigger fish” down the line.

This individual was supplying likely the whole Trinity Conception Area and probably more than that,” said Maher. “She was a large-scale drug trafficker.”

Maher also said that a number of recent overdoses, including one fatality, are believed to have been caused by contaminated drugs.

“There were a string of overdoes as you all know, in the area,” said Maher. “The drug analysis has been returned on all those overdoses and the substance has been confirmed to be fentanyl. At the time, our investigation revealed that the substance was being sold in the community as heroin, and all the individuals that overdosed, and unfortunately one person died, was from intravenous drug use, meaning that they used a needle or syringe to inject.”

Since that initial string of overdoses, things have gotten a little quieter.

“Since that dust up, it seems like either the substance hasn’t been sold in the area, or it was just a bad batch of drugs that hit the streets,” said Maher. “We haven’t had any fentanyl seizures since then, and we haven’t been called to any overdoses. So, hopefully it either was a substance that people know not to buy it because of what happened, or it was a bad batch of stuff and hopefully we don’t see that again.”

In December, police executed a search warrant in Carbonear where some cocaine was seized, and two individuals arrested and charged. In January, police executed another warrant in Carbonear, and cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycontin and MDMA, as well as firearms and a conductive energy weapon (similar to a taser) were seized, and two individuals charged and arrested.

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